Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6

Qualcomm recently unveiled two new flagship chips for Android smartphones in 2023: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. These chips represent a major leap forward in mobile technology, built on a 2nm process with an advanced Oryon CPU featuring two 5GHz Prime Cores and six 4GHz Performance cores.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 brings improvements in CPU performance by 10% and power efficiency by 37% compared to its predecessor, the Gen 5. In contrast, the Elite Extreme Gen 6 delivers a 13% boost in CPU performance over the previous generation. The Elite Extreme also boasts a global VVC (H.266) codec that enhances video efficiency, along with a rearchitected Adreno GPU offering 35% improved performance and 40% better power efficiency.

Both chips introduce AI-dedicated Adreno matrix cores, enabling advanced AI models to run more smoothly. The 8 Elite Gen 6 features 18 MB of High Performance Memory, providing a 12% power efficiency gain over last year's model. Gaming performance is further enhanced by Adreno Neural Fusion, which combines AI super-resolution and frame generation to achieve up to 40% power savings in supported games.

The Hexagon NPU introduces a new Element Accelerator for transformer workloads, boosting LLM performance by 14% and AI performance per watt by 20%. The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 takes it a step further with a 50% larger shared memory, facilitating the use of larger 30B+ parameters Mixture of Experts (MoE) models to minimize external memory access. This results in 35% improved NPU performance and 33% better AI performance per watt.

The Spectra ISP includes Intelligent Pixel Control, allowing for pixel-level scene understanding. The Extreme model supports 8K60 video and 4K240 ultra HD slow-motion capture. Both chips are paired with Qualcomm's newly architected X105 5G modem, which delivers 10% faster downlink and uplink speeds, supporting multiple data streams simultaneously for 3GPP Release 19 5G Advanced. Motorola has already announced its Signature 27 smartphone featuring the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.